Touch us gently, Time!

Our ambition, our content,

Lies in simple things.

THE SEA.

THE sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions

round!

It plays with the clouds; it mocks the

skies;

Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,

What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the
moon,

Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more,

And backward flew to her billowy breast,

[nest; Like a bird that seeketh its mother's And a mother she was, and is, to me; For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,

In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; [wild And never was heard such an outcry As welcomed to life the ocean child!

Time, like the winged wind

When 't bends the flowers, Hath left no mark behind, To count the hours!

Now she pales and shrinks away, Earth, into thy gentle bosom!

She hath done her bidding here, Angels dear!

On thee he leaves;

Some lines of care round both

Perhaps he weaves;

Some fears, - a soft regret
For joys scarce known;

Sweet looks we half forget;-
All else is flown!

Ah! With what thankless heart

I mourn and sing!
Look, where our children start,
Like sudden spring!

With tongues all sweet and low
Like pleasant rhyme,
They tell how much I owe
To thee and time!

SOFTLY WOO AWAY HER BREATH.

SOFTLY WOO away her breath,
Gentle death!

Let her leave thee with no strife,
Tender, mournful, murmuring life!
She hath seen her happy day, -
She hath had her bud and blos-
som;

Seraph of the skies, love!

BUT HEAVEN, O LORD, I CANNOT LOSE.

Now summer finds her perfect prime! Sweet blows the wind from western calms;

On every bower red roses climb;

The meadows sleep in mingled balms.

Nor stream, nor bank the wayside by, But lilies float and daisies throng, Nor space of blue and sunny sky

That is not cleft with soaring song.

O flowery morns, O tuneful eves,
Fly swift! my soul ye cannot fill!
Bring the ripe fruit, the garnered
sheaves,

The drifting snows on plain and hill.

Alike to me, fall frosts and dews; But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose!

Warm hands to-day are clasped in mine;

Fond hearts my mirth or mourning share:

Nor braid one beauteous lily in.
Ah! is it good or ill I choose?
But Heaven, O Lord, I cannot lose!

So wait I. Every day that dies
With flush and fragrance born of
June,

I know shall more resplendent rise Where summer needs nor sun nor moon,

And every bud on love's low tree, Whose mocking crimson flames and falls,

In fullest flower I yet shall see

High blooming by the jasper walls. Nay, every sin that dims my days, And wild regrets that veil the

CONTOOCOOK RIVER.

OF all the streams that seek the sea
By mountain pass, or sunny lea,
Now where is one that dares to vie
With clear Contoocook, swift and
shy?

Monadnock's child, of snow-drifts born,

The snows of many a winter morn,
And many a midnight dark and still,
Heaped higher, whiter, day by day,
To melt, at last, with suns of May,
And steal in tiny fall and rill,
Down the long slopes of granite gray:
Or, filter slow through seam and cleft,
When frost and storm the rock have
To bubble cool in sheltered springs
reft,
Where the lone red-bird dips his
wings,

Stoops, safe from hound and horn, to
And the tired fox that gains its brink

drink.

How fast its tide goes hurrying down, With rapids now, and now a leap Past giant boulders, black and steep, Plunged in mid water, fain to keep Its current from the meadows green ? But, flecked with foam, it speeds along;

And not the birch trees' silvery sheen,
Nor the soft lull of whispering pines,
Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low,
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that
glow

Where clematis, the fairy, twines,
Can stay its course, or still its song;
Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed,
The vales of Henniker are spread,
Their banks all set with golden grain,
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam
A double forest in the stream;